These NHL Viewership Numbers Are Horrific, And Maybe There's A Chance That $400 Sticks Are To Blame
Thearon W. Henderson. Getty Images.Awful Announcing -- According to Braylon Breeze of Sports Media Watch, last Thursday’s game between the San Jose Sharks and Seattle Kraken averaged just 175,000 viewers on ESPN — the least-watched NHL game of the year for the network and the lowest-viewed program on ESPN for the entire day.
The game, which began at 10:30 p.m. ET — already not a prime television viewing window — was outdrawn by its lead-in, an Iowa State-Kansas State women’s basketball game, more than 2-to-1. The Cyclones and Wildcats averaged 390,000 viewers, per Programming Insider.
…Later that night, TNT and truTV averaged a paltry 138,000 viewers for a Pittsburgh Penguins-Utah Hockey Club game, which itself was a non-exclusive broadcast.
Okay so before we really get into these numbers here, obviously the two examples used here are from west coast broadcasts that start at 10-10:30pm. Clearly nobody in America, especially on the east coast, gives enough of a shit about hockey to stay up for a game between the Sharks and Kraken that goes past midnight. The Sharks suck, plenty of people don't even know the Kraken exist, and people have work in the morning. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that game had horrific numbers.
Games like a Saturday afternoon puck drop between the Bruins and Rangers on ABC actually have pretty decent numbers, so it's not like nobody is watching hockey.
But have you ever wondered why hockey is so far and away in 4th place as a major sport in America? I know that people will love to shit on Gary Bettman any chance they get, and say that the league hasn't done enough of promoting the star players. And sure, part of that is true. But even if you promote the stars in the league, which they've gotten better at doing over the years, it's still difficult for their skill on the ice to translate to potential fans who don't actually play the sport themselves.
Take Connor McDavid for example. Anybody who has ever been on a sheet of ice before knows just how ridiculous of a monster this guy is on a nightly basis. You know how insane it is that he's able to do the things that he does on the ice, and make some of the best players in the world look like they just came from learn-to-skate.
But if you didn't play hockey? Or if you haven't spent years of your life watching the game and seeing that what he does isn't even remotely usual or common? Well I don't know if you'd be able to appreciate his greatness. In fact, he almost makes it look too easy. As if anybody should be able to do it.
The issue isn't that the league doesn't promote its stars. We're starting to see the NBA start to run not an issue where they promote the stars too much, and now people are getting sick of the reality show portion of it. The issue for the NHL is that not enough people are playing hockey. And why aren't they playing hockey?
Well because it costs a fucking fortune just to get on the ice.
$400 for a stick, $700-800+ for skates, $200 for a helmet, $150 for gloves. You're coming up on $2000 worth of equipment just to be able to step onto the ice, and that's before you even have to pay for ice time.
Now obviously the NHL feels like they're in a pretty decent spot right now with the salary cap about to explode. They've gone through a recent stretch of expansion, and have new broadcasting rights deals that I'm sure are doing most of the heavy lifting there. But if you want those broadcasting rights deals to keep going up so teams can afford to pay Mikko Rantanen $120 million this summer, then you need to get more people playing hockey.
The NHL themselves is actually doing a decent job of this with their Learn To Play program. It's for young kids, gets them completely decked out in equipment, and teaches them how to play the game. But once you're out of that program and you're on your own? Well hockey clearly isn't for everybody these days, but just everyone who is willing to spend that money to play. There are hundreds of thousands of potential hockey watchers out there right now, but they won't turn on a game because they'll never play it. And they'll never play it because sticks cost $400. And somehow those sticks always manage to snap just a few days after the warranty runs out.